Gimme Mo (Willems)

Mo Willems is probably best known for his Knuffle Bunnybooks. We have never been huge fans of that series, but we have thoroughly enjoyed a ton of his other stories. While vacationing at my parents’ house, I always make a stop at the local library to keep my kids in books. I went looking for some Elephant and Piggie books for my 4 year old and found some additional books that were new to us. Perhaps some of these will be new to you as well.

Elephant and Piggie is a series about two friends and their comical adventures. The books are mainly written in comic book style with very few words on each page. Gerald the Elephant is an overly dramatic worrier and Piggie is his rock. E loves reading the book “We Are in a Book!” where the pair realize that they are in a book and then figure out how to get the reader to say certain things. When she sees the covers of these books she lights up and begs for me to read them. We had a lot of fun with “My New Friend is So Fun” as well.

The Pigeon books are also quite hysterical. We first get introduced to Pigeon in “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” In that story a bus driver takes a break and tells the reader that he shouldn’t allow the pigeon drive the bus. It is a fun way to include the children in the story as they are expected to answer the pigeon back every time he asks a question. Most of the other books in this series also feature the pigeon wanting something and begging for it. From pigeon’s excitement in finding a hot dog to his outrage when Duckling gets a cookie (and he thinks he doesn’t), pigeons antics are sure to keep young children laughing. The image below is from Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!

In the adorable “Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator!” Amanda’s stuffed alligator is full of life. Adults can imagine how kids envision their beloved friends and it is a great way to encourage children to truly make their stuffed animals good friends. Unfortunately, Alligator gets bored when Amanda isn’t around. Initially she is off at the library bringing home a bunch of books in her weekly trip (yay!) and Alligator hopes that she will have a surprise for him as he loves surprises. But Amanda doesn’t always want to play with Alligator, sometimes she just wants to read a book. When she brings home a new stuffed animal Alligator is concerned and then realizes that now he has a new friend to play with while Amanda is gone. A very cute story about friendship that both of my girls enjoyed.

This book isn’t new to us, but we loved Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs the first time we found it so I grabbed a copy for our vacation pile. This is a very funny take on the classic Goldilocks tale where instead of three bears, Goldilocks goes into the home of three dinosaurs. However, those dinosaurs know the three bears story pretty well and have their home set up to try and turn Goldie into a “chocolate-filled-little-girl-bonbon.” This book is always good for a laugh.

Willems must enjoy drawing dinosaurs because we also found the cute book Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct. Edwina is the town dinosaur who is helpful and friendly and loves to bake chocolate chip cookies for everyone in town. Everyone likes her….everyone except Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie. Reginald is a know-it-all who likes to have people pay attention to him, but when he tries to tell the town that dinosaurs are extinct, no one will listen. Finally, Edwina listens to him but in the end she just doesn’t care. Now that someone has finally paid attention to him, Reginald doesn’t care anymore either. A cute story with fun illustrations.We hope that you enjoy these as much as we have!